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7/30/2009

In 2006, WellPoint and it's subsidiaries were sued for refusing to pay medical claims for their insureds and for dumping paying customers because those customers had the temerity to get sick.

Meet Angela F. Brady, CEO of WellPoint.

She makes in excess of 9 million dollars per year. Think she would ever have to worry about getting dumped by her insurance company because she forgot that she visited a dermatologist 20 years ago for acne?

No, she wouldn't have to worry about that. But recently, WellPoint went to Congress and said they didn't have any real policy of evaluating employees based on how many recissions (cancellations) of insurance plans due to extreme illness those employees managed to produce.

Oh, but wait, documents obtained by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said that yes, WellPoint's employee evaluations did indeed reward employees for dropping as many hot, sick and costly potatoes (i.e., paying insureds) as possible, well, because they are sick, and might cost the company some cash. In fact, it was found that WellPoint saved itself over $300,000,000 over 5 years by doing just what it said it didn't...then said it couldn't stop doing...dumping people when they got sick.

With every story we have seen over the past week, we see graft, fraud, heinous disregard for human life and outright murder. Why are none of these turkeys in jail? Angela Brady should have gone to jail the moment her mouthpiece went to congress last month saying "no, we don't reward our employees for recissions of paying policy-holders" and then it was found that they do indeed do just that.

But I suppose that when you've got Blue Dog Dems who pimp themselves out to the highest bidding insurance company john, and you've got the certifiably insane like Virginia Foxx saying that the healthcare bill will cause the mass slaughter of seniors, and then you have the House ready to vote its collective patoot off for a gigantic lumbering monster of a defense budget full of junk that the military doesn't want or need, then I suppose it is easy to see why none of these soul-and-body-murdering insurance company executives ever go to jail.

But you can rest assured that Angela Brady doesn't have to worry about it, not with her cushy little nest egg. No, sirree, she'll never have to worry about being denied coverage bought and paid for because some beancounter went picking through her records for the past 30 years and found that in 1988 she had a mole removed and decided that she isn't eligible for breast cancer treatment now because of that one tylenol. Oh, and she might break 10 million next year, if only she can get rid of that deadbeat who paid their premiums regularly for 30 years but now needs a double bypass.

Why won't she ever have to worry about any of that? Because she's f-ing rich, that's why, and everyone knows the whole f-ing world was just made for their f-ing pleasure.

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7/27/2009

Pregnant? Better hope your insurance company isn't AmeriGroup, because they won't cover your claims, even if you are completely entitled to coverage. And you have this guy to blame. Meet CEO James Carlson:

In fact, AmeriGroup got itself sued for defrauding the State of Illinois for taking Medicaid money, then cherry-picking the healthiest and "least pregnant" persons to insure. AmeriGroup was found guilty, and faced a $225,000,000 verdict. That's right, noone went to jail, the company was just slapped on the wrist and told "now don't you do that again!"

So, AmeriGroup defrauded the State of Illinois, and by proxy, the Federal Government. They also put women at risk so they could bolster their bottom line, because, folks, that's what it's all about.

I keep hearing from the right wing that "free market" will solve all our healthcare problems. Well, free market is what brought us to this crossroads, and the crossroads is plainly marked. Turn right, and more than half this country won't be insured in a decade, because the "free market" will have made that a financial impossibility. Turn left, and we just might stand a chance of getting a system we can tinker with over the next decade until it works reasonbly well, where at least everyone will be covered, where hard-working families get what they deserve - medical care that doesn't drive them into bankruptcy and financial ruin.

The question isn't whether to go right or left. That right turn was already taken decades ago, and has gotten us nowhere but the ditch, so there really is only one option.

Otherwise, we continue to be at the mercy of CEOs like Carlson. Carlson makes in excess of $5,000,000 dollars per year. Do you think he gives a damn that he runs a company that defrauds the entire country by defrauding Medicaid? Think he cares if any women faced troubled pregnancies because they couldn't get coverage thanks to his company defrauding the State of Illinois?

The question is, how bad do we want it? Do we want it bad enough to fight for it? Do we want it bad enough to inject it into every conversation we have in our daily lives and to send letters to the editors of our local newspapers and emails to our local news stations that we want news coverage of the healthcare crisis? Do we want it bad enough to boycott the sponsors of networks that allow anti-healthcare ads to be aired during primetime? Do we want it bad enough to call and write and email and basically harass unmercifully our State Senators and House Reps? Do we want it bad enough to donate to organizations like MoveOn who are airing ads in Blue Dogs congressional districts countering the lies and craziness from the Insurance Company ads?

I hope we do want it badly enough, because companies like AmeriGroup are toxic to the health of this country. They are murderers, not only of the body with their denied claims, but of the soul with their life-sucking corporate mentality which utterly disregards the simple fact that they are playing with people's lives...and livelihoods.

Do you want it bad enough?

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7/24/2009

Meet Stephen Hemsley, beady-eyed little CEO of UnitedHealth Group:

He makes over $3 million a year. He would have made more, but the company was sued by the SEC over backdated stock options. UnitedHealth settled with the SEC for a slap on the wrist, one CEO was tossed out and in steps Hemsley with his multi-million dollar compensation.

But good luck getting UnitedHealth Group to pay up if they are a secondary insurer behind Medicare - because they won't. California had to sue UnitedHealth Group and its subsidiary PacifiCare for failure to pay claims, for "losing" medical records, for improperly denying claims and a whole slew of other problems.

United Healthcare also got smacked with $12 million settlement in 37 states because of its nasty little habit of not paying on claims, with no good reason whatsoever other than "we don't wanna!"

$12 million. The Bee is betting dollars to donuts that was just another "slap on the wrist," considering the sheer number of complaints found just in the comments section of this article.

And, they outsourced to India.

These turkeys are the real villains in the Healthcare Crisis. These are the companies paying millions for ads demonizing any type of healthcare reform, these are the companies whose idea of "costs savings" is denying claims and denying treatments.

And today I heard that Obama says it is just okay if the Senate takes its MONTH LONG VACATION before tackling the healthcare crisis. Meanwhile, Companies like United get to pour more money into the swiftboating of the American People. You see, they get RICH off of our backs, and they would like to keep it that way. $3 million a year in compensation? Oh, yes, Little Mr. Hemsley is indeed a fatcat telling his customers that there are poorhouses for the likes of them.

So the next time some idiot prattles on to you about "socialism," just tell them that the rest of us are sick of supporting these money-sucking leeches called Insurance Companies. They've been on public welfare for decades now, and it's time to put an end to that.

President Obama, should you accidentally stumble upon this humble page (since I sent my link in the email I sent you Wednesday), stop giving in to the Senate and lay down the law. NO VACATION until they get this 1958 Buick off our backs. And if that means they sit there without even a potty break for 5 days, then that's the price they'll have to pay to get off their keisters and get this rolling. Some tough love is definitely in order here.

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7/22/2009

On April 19, 2002, The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided the case of Bynum v Cigna, and found in favor of Bynum. Bynum's daughter Katrina was born with a severe skull deformity. This deformity would have eventually led, in the opinion of her neurosurgeon, to severe facial and jaw deformities. He recommended a $3,000 procedure to correct the skull deformity, and thereby stave off the impending facial deformities in the process. Cigna denied the procedure for the 9 MONTH OLD INFANT as "cosmetic," without ever defining what constituted cosmetic prodecures, and in direct contradiction of the opinions neurosurgeon and other medical opinions that this baby's skull deformity would lead to a lifetime of medical problems. If she lived that long.

In the Bee's court, "cosmetic procedures" for a 9 month old infant simply do not exist. There is no such thing. If a 9 month old is deformed then the treatment is covered, period. I don't care if it is a birthmark in the shape of a butterfly on a baby's tush, if there is anything that can be corrected to better the future life of a 9 month old infant then it is covered by the insurance company the parents pay through the nose to for coverage. End of discussion, because any dissenting opinion is based in la-la land and is not fit for comment or reflection. And I have the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on my side.

Why would CIGNA have paid at least a hundred grand to fight a $3,000 procedure? Because if they paid it, then they would have to pay for other infants and children to have their deformities corrected. They would save themselves millions over the years in denying claims for deformities, because according to CIGNA's twisted logic, any procedure to cure a deformity in a child was just a cosmetic procedure akin to botox injections or breast enhancement.

Money that could go into this guy's pocket. Meet H. Edward Hanway, CEO of CIGNA, the company that would rather let babies be deformed for life than to pay up a few grand for a soul-and-life-saving treatment:

This is the guy who runs a company that doesn't like to pay to have an infant's deformities corrected with a THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR treatment. He would rather pocket that money.

He makes more than 12 MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR. Do you think he would be up nights worrying about how to pay for treatment for his infant's skull deformity? How hard would he have to fight to get treatment for his son or daughter?

These horror stories are NOT uncommon. Go google "CIGNA claims denial" and you'll see for yourself just how utterly evil this insurance company really is, and the contempt this company has for its insureds. Don't miss the young mother with children who, while dying of breast cancer, spent the last year of her life fighting for the disability insurance claim denied to her by CIGNA.

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7/21/2009

My good buddy Tom Harper over at Who Hijacked My Country has a MOST EXCELLENT post up dated 7/19/09 about the villains in the moneyed fight against Healthcare Reform. If you haven't seen that post, go now. Then come back, because I fully agree with Tom that there is a time and place for rational, reasoned and polite discourse, and this is not the time. The republicans in Congress, along with the Blue Dog Dems, are being paid tons of cash by the health insurance industry to kill any hope of a Healthcare Reform law passing. You already know why, but do you know who is passing out that money like candy to the babies in Congress?

This Lady had a claim for payment for a radiation treatment for breast cancer denied by Aetna because the insurance company considered it "experimental," even though Aetna was perfectly willing to approve this EXACT TREATMENT if it was for PROSTATE CANCER.

Ever had a claim for a procedure denied by Aetna? Ever had coverage yanked by Aetna? Ever know a relative who DIED because of a claim denied by Aetna?

Blame this guy. Ronald A. Williams, CEO:

His compensation tops 30 million dollars per year.

Do you think he sits up and night wondering if his wife develops breast cancer, will he just have to watch her die because they can't pay for the treatment?

How many people has this guy killed because the company that he presides over denies claims based on...nothing but a whim.

Next on Bee Style Trial for Crimes Against Humanity: Cigna.

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7/19/2009

Two House committees approved their portions of the Healthcare Bill last Friday. It's getting closer. Blue Dogs are balking. Republicans will not under any circumstances approve any single bit of it. Not a problem, we don't need you anyway.

Healthcare right now is probably the most important issue on a table full of issues, because if we don't get that 5 ton buick off our backs now, most of us won't have health insurance at all due to the fact the majority of the country won't be able to afford it. No health insurance = no treatment without ending up so far in debt that most people will never dig themselves out. Remember when the Bush Administration made it harder for an individual to file bankruptcy? Why? Because of the skyrocketing numbers of personal bankruptcies, with healthcare being the catalyst for most of them in the past few years, and his administrations intent was to make sure that as few as possible would be able to get out from under their mountain of debt.

This has got to stop. Nixon started the HMO debacle, Congress allowed them to form, and now it's nothing but profits for shareholders and screw everyone else. Oh, you're sick? Too bad. Oh, you've got a new job, but you had cancer a few years ago? Better hope you don't have a recurrence, because that will be a “pre-existing condition.” You got laid off and managed to find a new job, but your kid has a congenital heart condition that requires multiple surgeries? Aw, that's just too bad, sorry, pre-existing condition. But we willl be happy to pay up if they have a cold. The costs are killing us. The stress of worrying constantly about it is killing us.

My company does not even offer an HMO anymore. They offer PPOs, which are cheaper for the company, but the cheapest one for the employees ends up being close to $200/mo out of the employees pay, and they have to put up at least $2,000 worth of cash each year toward medical care before the damned insurance even kicks in. That is a travesty. It is a rip-off. It is a scam of gargantuan proportions. These are not employees making six figures. These are employees making maybe $40k/year, with a health insurance price tag, right out of the chute, without even factoring in Rx and anything else the insurance won't cover, and that's about $6,800 a year, out of pocket. Do the math: they are lucky if they take home less than $30,000 a year after federal/state taxes/SS/etc, and live on and raise their kids on what's left after paying for healthcare coverage that doesn't even cover them. It's a scam. Period. If they are lucky, there is a second income in the family – but in too many cases, there is no second income. They are beholden to the company. If they change jobs, it's $1800 a month for Cobra, and that's only good for a few months. If they are laid off, they get Cobra and then Nothing. If they are fired, they can get Cobra and then Nothing. If they find a better job, but have a sick child, they cannot take that better job without risking having a new insurance plan tell them their sick child's condition is pre-existing and WILL NOT BE COVERED. About 12% of personal bankruptcies in the early 90's were caused by medical bills. Now it's 78%. Here's the kick in the teeth: half of that 78% HAVE insurance, but it's not good enough, and they still go broke.

Right now, we have the chance we've been waiting for since FDR proposed nationalized healthcare in his New Deal package. He had to drop it to get Social Security passed, but at the time it wasn't quite a crucial as it is now. Right now, it is absolutely critical to the well-being of this country and its citizens that a healthcare bill be passed so that all are covered. This is the first time since FDR that we've really had a fighting chance to get it. Most of the country is behind it. N.O.W. is behind it (and NOW doesn't like anything). The AMA just announced they can live with it. Nurses unions are behind it. In fact, is seems that most of the healthcare industry, the people who actually work with the sick and don't just deny claims and run them in rings over the phone about what treatment they may have when they are sick and hurting, are behind it. We have a democrat majority in both houses to ram this thing through, and ram it through we must. Full speed ahead, Blue Dogs get on board or we will drown you, and republicans shut up, sit down and get out of the way.

It cannot wait. If the economy improves significantly in the next few quarters, we willl have lost our chance. Apathy will set back in. Once people who have been laid off in the millions over the past year start going back to work, the momentum will be lost. Should we take advantage of the dire job market in the US? Hell, yes, because that's when progressive legislation gets passed.

All I can hope is that they don't screw it up and concede too much to placate republicans who just don't even matter anymore. However, it can always be tweaked later on, but it needs to be put in place now while the fire is hot.

I'll say it again: Screw the republicans. They are scared to death that we'll get it, because if we do, we will like it, and it will be like Social Security. It will be sacred, untouchable, the holy of holies, and they willl fight it to the death, even though it would benefit most of their own constituency. I've heard talk of class war, and this is the big battle, and it's one that must be the priority right now, because healthcare is sucking too many of us totally dry. The well is dry, the turnips have been bled, we are stressed to the breaking point but the costs just keep going up, the premiums just keep going up, the insurance companies and HMOs just keep raking in profits, but we NEVER EVER GET A BREAK. Employers are moving to whatever is cheapest for them, and damn the employees who make the company what it is, and keep it going on a daily basis. Small businesses can't even afford to offer it at all. Large ones, taking advantage of the sour job market are cutting it to the bone, or cutting it completely, and they can get away with it because the employees don't stand a chance when it means no paycheck to complain.

A friend has a signature line on her emails that quotes Bill Kristol: If the Democrats ever pass Health Care,the GOP is in the wilderness for years to come. They know it and we know it, and it will just be a lovely little side benefit, as far as I am concerned, because the importance of putting a healthcare option on the books is far more important that making the republicans look bad. They don't really need help in that department, anyway. So I'll say it again: Screw the Republicans, and Blue Dogs get on board or risk being drowned.

Personally, I don't even care right now if the plan is perfect. It won't be, nothing brand new ever is, but it can be amended and altered and tweaked as we go along for the next few years - as long as everyone can get coverage, and as long as noone has to go totally broke because they had a gall bladder out, or because they broke a leg, or because their kid has a disease that insurance doesn't want to cover.

It has to happen, and it has to happen now.

Let's make it happen. Call your congressional representatives, House and Senate. Carve out 5 minutes a day to pick up the phone and make the call. Don't email, pick up the phone and call, because what I can tell you after visiting one of my senators recently is that they take you more seriously, they listen more closely, if you take the trouble to personally call or write an actual letter. They figure in the days of instant communication via email and twitter, if you pick up a phone, you must really mean it. Do it tomorrow during business hours so you might get a secretary or aide to speak to personally and who is charged with the task of actually writing down your message for the Senator. Engage them in the conversation so they remember you. Lay on the heat, and keep stoking the fires, because we cannot afford to lose this one. If you think that healthcare coverage in this country is bad now, just wait and see what happens if we lose this time. Do you think it is a coincidence that the insurance industry went batshit mad on power and greed after the Clinton's poorly planned initiative failed in the 90's?

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7/13/2009

President Obama has chosen Dr. Regina Benjamin as Surgeon General, and in the Bee's Most Humble Opinion, he has nailed this one. Dr. Benjamin has done time in the trenches of poverty and her served her patients through hurricanes and fires and never quit to go into a specialty where she could earn a lot more money. This one sounds like a keeper. See what CNN had to say about her:

Her medical training was paid for by a federal program, the National Health Service Corps, under which medical students promise to work in areas with few doctors in exchange for free tuition, one year of service for every year of paid tuition.

Benjamin founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in 1990 in the fishing village of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, and has served as its CEO since. Like many of her patients, the clinic has suffered its own life-threatening challenges. It was heavily damaged by Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It also burned to the ground several years ago. But Benjamin rebuilt it after each setback and has continued to offer medical care to the village's 2500 residents.

Her commitment to them has meant making house calls during the rebuilding, mortgaging her house and maxing out her credit cards, Obama said. "Regina Benjamin has refused to give up; her patients have refused to give up," he said.

Many of her family practice patients are immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who make up a third of Bayou La Batre's population, and many of them are uninsured.

Benjamin's expertise goes beyond medicine; she earned a master's in business administration in 1991 from Tulane University. But her focus has not been on making money for herself, she said.

"My priority has always been the needs of my patients," she said. "I decided to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay."

Benjamin said she has worked for years to scrape together the resources needed to keep the clinic doors open and found "it has not been an easy road. ... It should not be this hard for doctors and other health care providers to care for their patients."

She praised Obama "for putting health care reform at the top of your domestic agenda," and said she hopes, if confirmed by the Senate, "to be America's doctor, America's family physician."

"As we work toward a solution to this health care crisis, I promise to communicate directly to the American people, to help guide them through whatever changes come with health care reform. I want to make sure that no one falls through the cracks," she said.

Dr. Benjamin still faces Senate confirmation, but I think she'll pass easily enough. What can the repubes say against her other than mutter a few "socialists" and thinly-veiled racist epithets?

In other news, Bernie Madoff is going to the clink to serve his 150 year sentence. He won't appeal it, because Bernie may be crookeder than a dog's hind leg, but he's no dummy, and he knows he's safer behind bars than out here in the population where there are plenty of people who would love to kill him, dismember his body and feed him to the nearest tiger exhibit.

Meanwhile, Judge Sotomayor, who yesterday was told by republicans breathing into the ethernet to "be more neutral," announced today she would serve the law impartially. Come'on, Judge, just let it all hang out - you believe that minorities in this country have pretty much gotten the shaft at every single turn, and you're right. You believe that the law protects the little guy - and you're right, that's what it's supposed to do. And yes, being a Latina woman does give a person a totally different life experience than growing up on the "right side" of the tracks white, upper class and wanting for absolutely nothing, and it gives a person a perspective that some of the other Supreme Court judges don't have a freaking clue about.

Did I mention how I"m pretty happy with Dr. Benjamin being picked for Surgeon General?

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7/6/2009

BushCo spent the past 7 years scaring the willies out of the Russians, to the point where I really was starting to believe we were headed smack into another 1972 style Cold War. BushCo started yanking Putin's chain about 7 years ago, when right after 9/11 there was a tiny little article buried in the back of the newspapers about how BushCo said that the Nuclear option was definitely an option. The Ambassador from Russia was quoted as saying something along the lines of "Oh, Shitski!" That was my sentiment, also. BushCo managed to sign a treaty with Putin, but then promptly started spouting off about nuclear options.

Oh, Shit. This crazy turkey is going to get us into another nuclear stand-off with Russia. Forget Pakistan and Iran and India, those guys have enough firepower left over, and still functioning, to destroy the entire planet 200 times over, and so do we. This was pretty much my train of thought 7 years ago.

I grew up in the Cold War. I remember watching "The Day After," a movie which finally convinced Reagan of all people to deal with the Soviets instead of thumping the chests and bellowing Yarp. Every president since Kennedy has understood this, with the exception of Bush. Thank the dog Reagan was watching TV that night in 1983, along with most of the rest of this country, because that movie led to some serious thinking by both Reagan the American People of just how far they really wanted to push that "nuclear option" talk. The only good thing I can honestly give Reagan credit for was having the sense to stop the "Evil Empire" talk.

And then comes Little Georgie, playing at world "leader", shooting off his trap and trying his best to start up that nasty historical episode anew.

Today Presidents Obama and Medvedev managed to start to heal those bad relations, and come to a new preliminary agreement to a treaty to reduce the number of nuclear arms load on both sides to 1,500 each. Still enough to kill us all 20 times over. But you know what? It's a start, because neither side wants wants to go back to the Cold War.

Let me rephrase that: Neither side's people who are rational, thoughtful and mindful of history wanted the BushCo/Putin spats to continue, and with good reason. We both could still blow this planet back into the time before the Cambrian explosion, and guarantee that there would be no new Cambrian explosion to take its place.

Obama has been taking a lot of heat lately, from liberals and Klanservatives alike, but this one move shows this guy is most definitely NOT Bush. Some of his criticism is certainly fair criticism, but what I do not want to hear is that he is the "same as Bush," because he is definitely not the same as Bush. Bush got his rocks off by scaring the rest of the world (and those of us here who had sense enough to take notice) to death, without a single thought in his alcohol riddled head to the possible ramifications of his "nuclear option" speech. Nuclear option is not an option, and cannot ever be considered an option.

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Palin had to give back the high-dollar clothing the McCain campaign bought her. In fact, after the election, they had to send "Manny the Hand" to "reclaim" the clothing.

Palin was reputed to have built that dream house on the lake by mooching materials off of the building of the sports complex, a scam which is easy enough to play.

So, Little Sarah takes a ton of shit in the blogs for all of her fiscal dalliances. She even took a little in the MSM right after the election when campaign handlers pulled out the long knives and told about how she was impossible to handle, impossible to coach. Little Sarah's response: "I couldn't find anyone to pray with."

Huh? What does that have to do with anything? Oh, that's right - absolutely nothing.

She cried foul when she made herself look like an ass every single time she let herself be filmed.

Now, she blames the media, and those "bloggers in pajamas" that I wrote about back in October, who were just being so damned unfair to her by asking simple questions like "What do you read for fun?" "How would you handle the Israeli/Palestine situation?" She couldn't answer anything beyond "What color is your Louis Vuitton purse?" So it's all the fault of the MSM and those despicable bloggers.

I wrote all kinds of nasty stuff about Palin during the campaign, and I don't feel sorry for having written one word of it. I just wish I had been a little...meaner.

Little Sarah had her Ambulance Chasers issue a threat letter to sue anyone in the media and sue the ENTIRE INTERNET, directed presumably at the general public, MSM and internet for picking on poor Little Sarah, who got so upset she had to quit her job as the Governor of a FREAKING STATE.

The funny thing about that letter is that is really only validates all the speculation going on in the blogosphere about that House and the possible charges of embezzlement, because the letter goes on and on about how the Mayor of Wasilla really doesn't...well, Mayorize. According to the letter, the Mayor of Wasilla doesn't really do much of anything, or have much say in anything. The lady doth protest too much, and that smells like smoke to me. My guess is that there is a heck of a lot to those speculations that is true enough to spook this crazy fool right out of her cushy job as Governor.

First, Little Sarah, the lawyers can shove that letter up their collective "Clapp Peterson et. al." asses. Sue the internet. Good luck to you. It can't be easy suing a series of servers and mainframes. That, and the internet has a life of its own. For every single embedded YouTube video you manage to have "disabled" there are 500 more waiting to be watched. For every blogger you think you can litigate into oblivion, there are 5,000 more waiting to take their crack at you, and maybe even launch themselves into Blogger Stardom with a particularly good potshot. Personally, I'm thinking it's high time we have class action suits against the criminal threat to silence speech as guarantee by the First Amendment. In fact, all they succeeded in doing is turning the Bee, and many others, onto Shannyn Moore, probably one of the biggest thorn in Little Sarah's side, next to HuffPo.

Second, one does not just quit a job because one gets picked on, or talked about, or even treated like shit. If that were the case, WalMart would have shriveled up and died years ago for lack of employees. She took an oath to serve Alaska for a full term as Governor. From what I've heard, she didn't do a very good job, but she took an oath, and oaths are not to be broken. For any trumped up whiney "poor little me" excuse. This shows the most severe lack of fortitude in a politician that I've seen in a while, and that's saying something, considering that her side tends to go to jail on a regular basis.

Dear readers, we dodged a bullet last November. People can complain about Obama all they like, but if McCain had won, he would have died in office. There's no way an 80 year old man can last 1 year in what is probably one of, if not the most stressful job in the world. That would have left Little Sarah as President, and that, friends, scares me more than GWB ever did. How about Idi Amin-ette for a mental image?

I can hope this crazy bitch will fade into the obscurity that is dictated by a populace that has a 20 day attention span. I can hope that this will be the last we hear from her, unless indictments do get handed down, in which case Faux News can yammer on and on about how "unfair" everyone is being to her - she only scammed herself a McMansion from a public works project, after all! But this one will be like the proverbial bad penny - she will just keep popping up, time and time again, to wink like an idiot and stammer her way through unscripted speeches that make no sense on their face, and cannot even be analyzed properly, because how do you analyze the speeches of the severly mentally deranged?

I guess the bright side of all of this foolishness is that suddenly Cheney isn't all over the tubes trying to pass on his Dr. Strangelove'ian version of the coming apocalypse.

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It's not easy to write during the summer. Too many distractions. Friends saying "come on out, we'll float on the lake." Work too demanding, young'in too demanding, not enough time contemplate the workings of the county/city/state/nation/world/odd individuals.

Speaking of odd individuals (no, not Michael Jackson), Caribou Barbie is calling it quits in Alaska. She's resigning as Governor this month.

This crazy bitch actually thinks she's going to run for President. She cuts bait in her home state the minute she starts to take a little criticism and starts to see that the oil revenues are not going to save her forever, so she quits? Dog forbid she actually get the RNC nomination (which actually wouldn't suprise me one bit, given that they seem to all be now a bunch of whining driveling sniveling bullshit shoveling anti-social and just-a-tad-bit-psychotic overgrown babies who want nothing more than to burn down the entire daycare just so they can crow "we won".) If she can't handle the heat in Alaska, what's she going to do when the eastern staters really get a hold of her? She thought she was unfairly and maliciously picked on when she ran for Vice last fall. That was just a taste. She's a Duggar in Versace, and there will be plenty of pundits and talking heads and bloggers in their pajamas who will be more than happy to let her know that.

Stocks dipped again on the jobs report - evidently, there are still a hell of a lot of people unemployed, more are being laid off every day and Wall Street seemed suprised by this. Someone tell me again, explain to me like I'm 5 years old, how the free market could possibly save us all, as the republicans like to yammer, when Wall Street is shocked at news like this? Talk about stating the obvious - what did they expect, to hear that unemployment suddenly dipped to .2% overnight?

So happy 4th of July. If your locality even has one this year - some are so broke they can't afford the fireworks and Tuba Competitions.

But take heart, my fellow Americans, because you can still win the lottery. To see Michael Jackson's memorial, that is.

Cripes - how sick are we, as a society, really?

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